1. (Field of the Invention)
The present invention relates to a musical playing data processor for recording and reproducing musical playing data for electronic musical instruments or the like, and more particularly to improvements of punch in recording functions.
2. (Description of the Prior Art)
A sequencer, which is a form of musical playing data recording and reproducing apparatus, is currently in practical use. The sequencer is capable of recording musical playing data in real time as it is actually played on an electronic musical instrument or the like and also reproducing recorded musical playing data on an electronic musical instrument or the like. In actually played music, errors and/or portions that the player finds unsatisfactory could occur, requiring corrections of such errors and/or portions. In such a case, rerecording the whole music over again not only takes a lot of time and effort of playing but might cause errors in other portions. In view of such difficulty, there has also been proposed a sequencer having a so-called punch-in recording function which replaces newly inputted musical playing data with previously recorded musical playing data in a specific period whereby only portions containing errors or found unsatisfactory in already recorded music can be replaced with new musical playing data.
However, the prior art sequencer has had the shortcoming that since the specified punch-in timing which represents a start of the specific period and punch-out timing which represents an end of the specific period are reset once the punch-in recording is done, the timing must be specified over again if the punch-in recording failed at the first attempt.
Also, when playing back recorded musical playing data, there is sometimes a need to play back only a desired portion, particularly, a need to play back the desired port ion repeatedly. In view of such needs, there has previously been proposed a sequencer (such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,454,797) capable of specifying a particular section and playing back the specified section repeatedly.
However, in the above sequencer, it has not been. possible, during the playback of musical playing data, to specify a section to be played back repeatedly, and also, such a section has had to be specified by its bar number or the address at which data for that section is recorded. Therefore, the above sequencer has had the shortcoming that the bar or other number for the section to be repeated has to be checked up on the music. Also, since the sections can only be specified in blocks of bars, the above sequencer has had another shortcoming that when playing back syncopated music, the melody cannot be repeated as originally recorded.
Also, the sequencer can record musical playing data exactly as generated in actually played music, and for example, can record the change of tempo, etc. exactly as originally played. Therefore, when the recorded musical playing data is played back, the same music as originally played can be reproduced. This means that tempo data recorded not only at the start of the music but also in the middle of the music. In prior art, the sequencer has been designed so that tempo values, whether at the start or in the middle of music, are recorded directly as data (such as disclosed in Japan Patent Laid Open sho No. 63-193194, etc.).
However, since the tempo has to be coordinated throughout the music, when the tempo of the music speeds up or slows down, the tempo has increase or decrease throughout the whole music. In such a case, with the above prior art sequencer, all tempo data for the music have to be rewritten, which not only is extremely time and labor consuming but also involves troublesome work to calculate the amount of increase or decrease.
One possible solution to the above problem has been a method whereby a value is stored which indicates the degree of change from the current tempo to a new tempo. However, this method has had the shortcoming that when playing back music after skipping a prescribed amount of musical playing data by fast forward or other means, the tempo setting would be rendered totally improper if the prescribed amount of data contained tempo data which had not been read out because of the skipping of that amount of data.